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Why do so many people avoid making a “mid-career” course change, avoid switching companies, jumping to new industries, starting their own company, or even avoid moving to a new department within the same company?

Fear.

They probably won’t admit it, but the fear shows in their “I can’t” phrases (excuses):

“I can’t afford to start at the bottom at this stage of my career.”

“The only thing I recognized at that company was the restroom sign. Everything else was foreign. I’ll never survive over there.”

“The learning curve is way too steep! I’m not a technical person anyway, so I’ll just stick it out in this department.”

“I may not like what I’m doing, but at least I know everything there is to know about this job. I’d have to start at ground zero over there.”

“I was surrounded by a bunch of kids just out of college. I can’t relate to them. I definitely don’t understand what they’re saying.”

What if the “I can’t” phrases were replaced with “I can’t wait!” phrases:

“I can’t wait to dig into a new industry!”

“I can’t wait to learn how these new machines work!”

“I can’t wait to exercise my curiosity again!”

“I can’t wait to forgive myself for not knowing everything!”

“I can’t wait to understand the perspectives of a new generation!”

“I can’t wait to grow and stretch!”

“I can’t wait to give myself permission to fail…every day!”

“I can’t wait to bring my experience and talents into this new arena!”

“I can’t wait to make a profound difference in a new field!”

“I can’t wait to surprise myself!”

I don’t remember who said it first: “Hire the attitude, train for skill.”

Who would you rather hire? The candidate who seems scared, confused, and overwhelmed…or the candidate who CAN’T WAIT to learn, who CAN’T WAIT to start, who CAN’T WAIT to become a valued contributor in your company?

I’ll take the “I can’t wait” candidate every time.

Fear is a normal part of life. But, courage… Courage is what happens when you decide to act in the face of that fear.

When you can’t wait to explore, can’t wait to challenge, and can’t wait to learn, you’ll be one step closer to harnessing your fear and embracing your courage.

By the way, adopting the “I can’t wait” mantra is a good idea at any stage of your life.

Can you give your boot a quick wiggle and move that pebble out from under your foot? Maybe, but guess what. It’ll find it’s way back under your heal in no time. They always do.

Does it matter that you’re making great time up the mountain, and have lots of momentum on your side? Nope. That little pebble demands attention.

That’s the way of the small irritant. It’s there and it won’t be leaving on its own. It will start to cause damage, become more distracting, and take more of your attention. Try as you might, there’s no way to ignore it.

The only thing you can do is stop and take off your pack, then take off your boot and dump that little pebble out.

And that’s how an auditor can shortcut their work. It’s a tried and true method for getting a quick start, ensuring consistency with the prior year’s audit, and making sure that’s nothing obvious gets missed.

Q: “What’s our big goal for the new year?”

A: “Let’s see if we can beat last year’s growth by a few percentage points.” (Sally Method)

Nobody can argue against growth, especially if it beats what we did last year.

“We can’t change the rules of the game. It’s tradition to play it this way.” (Sally Method)

Tradition usually wins.

Sally…Same As Last Year (the second L is silent).

It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s safe.

Life outside the box that Sally creates is scary. It’s filled with uncertainty. It can lead to failure. It can lead to embarrassment (something we fear more than failure).

But, it’s also the best place to find new ideas, opportunities for new exploration, and new growth.

What if we start with Sally (the easy starting point), and then opt for more? Not only something more but something different? Something radical, and maybe even a little nonsensical?

When we give ourselves permission to explore and fail, we unleash a power that Sally can’t imagine or contain.

Chaos is easy to create. Eliminate judgment, eliminate priorities, and you’ve set the stage for a good dose of chaos.

Chaos is seductive. It gives the appearance of action while preventing forward progress.

All the planning, all the preparation, all the foresight…none of it will prevent chaos when we give it control.

Chaos provides excellent camouflage for mediocre results.

After all, how can I be held accountable when all around me is chaos? If I’m able to deliver any results amidst all the chaos, I’m a hero. It doesn’t matter if my results are of the highest quality or even the desired quantity.

Look around you. Is your work environment chaotic? What about your personal time? Chaotic?

Is all this chaos creating a positive environment for the changes you want, or is it sapping energy and stopping progress?

The secret to chaos is that you own the choice. You decide how chaotic your life is. You have the power over chaos, even when it appears that chaos is in control.

When you choose your priorities, choose what gets your attention, choose what to ignore, and choose what to eliminate, you take back control from chaos.

Be careful…

As you consciously take steps to eliminate chaos, you will be held accountable for the results you should be producing, instead of the results you sneak past all the chaos.

In the end, living in chaos is easier than being truly effective…probably why so many people choose it.

Surprise! The executive that “owns” your company’s contract and projects just got fired.

Surprises in business are rarely the good kind.

In fact, a “good” surprise in business can become a nightmare if you’re not prepared.

Think about that sudden and unexpected increase in demand for your service or product. Great news! But, now your staff is feeling overworked and things are starting to break under the pressure of all this new business.

How does all of this connect with managing up?

The number one thing your boss, and your boss’s boss (and so on) need from you is to minimize the surprises that come their way.

Does this mean you should keep information away from them? Of course not!

It means creating an open and thorough communication path between you and your boss.

It means anticipating surprises before they happen. Preparing for the unexpected, since you can always expect it. I’ve seen lots of surprises that shouldn’t have been surprises at all.

Your boss needs to know when something is wrong, or about to go wrong.

Your boss needs you to be honest. Always. Even if you’re the one causing the surprise.

If you, or someone in your organization, make an expensive mistake, your boss needs to know about it. Now. More importantly, your boss needs to know how you plan to learn from that mistake, and avoid a similar mistake like this one in the future.

If you see or hear something in the marketplace that can help (or hurt) your organization, your boss needs to hear from you. Now.

The last thing you want is for your boss to learn about a problem (or a surprise, which may be the same thing) within your organization from someone else. This does two things:

Lets your boss know that you may not understand that something is going wrong, and

Makes your boss wonder if you’re hiding bad news and if you can be trusted.

When I was a kid, we lived in a small 3-bedroom house. We had a hallway that got pitch black when all the doors were shut. Even when your eyes adjusted, there was almost no light to see where you were going. I always had this (unfounded) fear that I might run into something, hit my head, or crack my shins on some unseen edge.

Your boss might as well be walking in that same dark hallway, whether he or she realizes it. It’s tough to see what’s coming, and in the real world, that fear of being hit by something in the darkness is often justified.

Many of the lessons we learn from the “school of hard knocks” begin as surprises.

Lesson One: expect the unexpected.

Lesson Two: make sure your boss knows what’s coming.

Lesson Three: don’t ever forget about Lesson Two, and you’ll be doing a great job of “managing up” in the process.

We don’t know how to play the piano, hit a tennis ball, type a letter, program a computer, balance a checkbook, climb a mountain, drive a car, wake surf, back up a semi-trailer, finish concrete, ride a bike, race a motorcycle, fix an engine, pilot an airplane, or just about anything else.

Fortunately, humans are learning machines. Watch a toddler for even a few minutes and you’ll see an aggressive and insatiable quest to imitate, experiment, test limits, check for patterns, see what works, see what parents allow, and see what happens when they push certain buttons (real and metaphorical). Amazingly, they’re doing these things before they can walk or talk.

Toddlers also have an almost unending desire to “do it again.” If throwing the ball once is fun, it’s even more fun to go pick it up and throw it again, and again, and again.

I took a typing class in my freshman year of high school. There were about fifty students in the class. Half of the typewriters were electric (the new IBM Selectrics) and the other half was manual typewriters. Yes, I’m that old.

I started my year on a manual typewriter (we swapped to the Selectrics mid-year). This meant that at the end of each line, after hearing the ding, I had to reach up and manually return the carriage…and place my fingers back on the correct keys to continue typing. It also meant that my keystrokes had to be smooth, consistent and well-timed. Otherwise, the keys would jam on top of each other.

We started with the Home row. I must have typed ASDFJKL; a thousand times! Then, we added the G and the H to the home row drill. ASDFGHJKL; Again. Again. Again. Ding. Manual carriage return.

Did I mention that all the keys on the typewriters were blank? We were learning how to be “touch” typists. Looking at the keys was not an option. We had diagrams and workbooks that showed us what each key was, but nothing on the typewriter.

After mastering the Home row, we moved up to the QWERTY row. The row that gives the standard keyboard its name. QWERTYUIOP Again. Again. Again. Again.

Next, the drills included the Home row and the QWERTY row at the same time. We were typing letters in random order from both rows. QPJHFDRT Again. Again. Again. Ding. Manual carriage return.

Finally, we moved to the dreaded bottom row. ZXCVBNM,. I hated the Z. The Z is in an awkward spot. It requires pinky strength and dexterity in the left hand. A tall order for a right-hander. A right-hander who had broken his left pinky a few years earlier (another long story).

Now our drills included all three rows, and all in random order.

Oh yeah, every drill was being timed. We started and stopped each drill as a class and typed the drills until we heard the ringing of the clock.

The drills got harder, included more randomness, and both upper-, and lower-case letters. Again. Again. Again.

I don’t remember how many weeks we spent on all these drills, but one day our teacher told us we’d be typing actual sentences. One more thing: our typing speed would be measured in words-per-minute.

Any mistakes would subtract one word from our score, so accuracy mattered.

How could this be? We’d never typed sentences before. We weren’t ready to be tested…on real sentences. We were just getting good at the drills. We had practiced proper hand position, proper finger curl, proper posture. But, this was uncharted territory.

“Ready? Begin.”

“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.”

“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.”

Why do I remember these two sentences? They’re classic typing drill sentences. They each use almost all the letters in the alphabet and require the typist to jump between all the rows. I typed these two sentences continuously during the day of our first typing test.

I realized I was actually typing! Not just a drill, but two real sentences. I was typing them quickly…even on a manual typewriter.

After that first day of testing, we typed many more sentences. We learned about the structure of various business letter formats. We typed information into practice forms. We keyed numbers into columns. We centered text. All before spreadsheets or word processors made these simple tasks.

Our teacher provided the drills, the structure, and the discipline. We drilled, practiced, and drilled again. And, again.

We were touch typists, using the skills we learned through repetition. I was having my own “Wax on…wax off,” moment before Karate Kid was a movie.

I’ve never been much of a gamer. The idea of more computer time at night, after spending an entire work day on a computer has little appeal for me.

Until I saw, or more accurately, heard, SpaceTeam. My little cousins were gathered in a circle, yelling out commands to each other, swiping their devices, and pushing toward the elusive goal of HYPERSPACE.

Set the Duotronic Capacitor to 2!

They’re all on a malfunctioning spaceship, attempting to escape from a black hole. The only way they will survive is to work together.

It’s called a collaborative shouting game for phones and tablets.

Commands whiz across each players’ device, but here’s the tricky part: their fellow players are the only ones who can carry out those commands. And, there’s a time crunch since the black hole is pulling at the ship the entire time!

Calibrate the Hypersonic Thrusters to 3!

Each player has to see their own commands, yell out those commands for their fellow players to execute, and also be listening to the other players’ commands that they can execute on their device.

Disengage the Warp Transponders!

As I watched them play, I thought the game looked like a fun way to practice reading, and learn about team work…and have some fun.

Then, they asked me to play.

My first thought was, “I’m not much of a gamer. I probably have something else I should be doing.” But, when do I get an opportunity to play a game with my cousins (who range in age from 5 to 11 years old)…especially where they’re teaching me how to play.

Remember to remove the slime!

Did I mention the slime? As the game progresses, minor problems start to impact your device. The game controls come unhinged and swing on the screen. Slime oozes across the controls. The slime can be cleared by swiping it away, but that distracts from reading your commands. It also distracts from hearing your teammates’ commands and executing them as quickly as possible.

This game is a lot harder than it looks! Like most things in life, spectating is much easier than playing.

Set the Flux Beam to 2!

Luckily, my team is strong and capable. While I’m distracted with slime and repairing my control screen, they’re executing commands flawlessly. I can hear the patience in their voices as they repeat their commands. A sense of calm hovers over us amidst the yelling of commands. We just might make it to HYPERSPACE!

Disengage the Tripolimer Conduits!

Do the commands have any rhyme or reason? Does it really matter? This is a crisis! We don’t have time! Our survival is at stake!

Sci-fi fans will recognize many of the words, but that won’t help you. Your ability to quiet your mind, focus on your screen, and listen to your teammates will determine your success. That and your teammates’ ability to do the same thing.

You win as a team and lose as a team. Sound familiar?

If one player is weaker than the others, it’s up to the team to deal with it by executing what they can as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Deploy the Solar Sail!

Do you work with and trust others to achieve your goals?

Do you find a sense of calm and confidence when relying on your teammates to perform?

Are you dealing with “slime” in your life as you work to achieve your goals?

Are you called upon to deliver results without enough time, even when things are a little chaotic and difficult?

Do you allow yourself to be lifted-up by your team when you fall short of their expectations?

SpaceTeamwill give you practice on all of these questions…and it’s lots of fun!

HYPERSPACE!

How’d we do? I’m pretty sure I was the weak link. We made it to HYPERSPACE anyway. It pays to be on a strong team! We didn’t get to play a second round because the evil Schedule Monster emerged from the shadows to remind us about the event we were attending.

Humans are more sensitive to the suck than the awesome. We thrive on the negative. Bad news travels fastest. We assume and discount good news, so we don’t put much effort into spreading it…even to ourselves.

Measuring the suck is arbitrary and subjective. Something that sucked only 1% last week may suck 95% today when that 90-minute commute causes you to miss your daughter’s award ceremony.

Are you considering a job change? Just thinking about it means you’ve decided that the suck ratio is getting too high in your current job. So, a new opportunity or a new direction seems like a good idea.

The new opportunities have their own suck, whether you choose to see it or not. Sure, they have things you appreciate, but it’s easy to overvalue the good stuff and minimize the parts that suck.

It’s human nature to see only the “good” stuff that’s happening over there…and see only the things that suck, happening here.

The grass usually isn’t greener over there (wherever “there” is). It’s usually just another shade of green that looks greener today. The suck ratio is in play over there just as much as it is where you’re standing.

Does this mean we should never change jobs or career paths? Hardly. But, it’s important to keep some things in mind:

Every job has a suck ratio.

It’ll take a lot longer than you think to get good at your new job. Even longer before you become great at it. Until then, it’s suck ratio will be higher than you like.

It’s hard to see the suck from the outside. Suck only shows itself once you’re on the inside when it’s too late.

Don’t measure the suck every day. Suck measures are only accurate over the long-term.

It’s easy to find something that sucks today if we look hard enough. It’s just as easy to find something that’s awesome.

The effort we put into the search for suck or awesome dictates the one we find the most. That’s true for jobs, too.